Elpis
by Ichthyophobia
Summary: The Pandora gem was supposed to cry tears of immortality. It didn't. And Kuroba Kaito lives on. (Done for the third Super Short contest at Poirot Cafe Forums. No pairings.)


The Pandora gem was supposed to cry tears of immortality. It didn't.

What happened, as far as Kaito remembered it, was more like a flash of light, a sensation of weightlessness. There was something that should've been pain – it really should've, as he watched his hands break into tiny glowing pieces like fireflies before falling back together, a sensation that should've been breaking but was more the pins-and-needles numbness of a limb falling asleep. There was a ringing in his ears that lasted a few days, and an odd bright edge to the world that he's never decided if it went away or if he forgot what things looked like without it.

There were a lot of things, when he smashed the gem with the moon as his witness, and smashed the shards besides. But not tears.

The tears came later. (And Pandora didn't cry them.)

* * *

Kaito is supposed to cry at funerals. He doesn't.

At Jii's funeral, his shoulders shake and his hands are unsteady. But tears won't bring his mentor back, so he kneels before the urn and produces dove after dove after dove, making them disappear and reappear over and over again. There's no showmanship, no flash, there are just – just birds. Just magic. Because Jii would appreciate that, and he always liked the doves besides.

At his mother's funeral, his throat is tight and he can't breathe, and the whole world murmurs words of comfort. She looked young until the end, thanks to her disguises, but it was her time, and now she isn't in pain anymore. He kneels dully before the urn that day, not sure what to pray or how to act or what to do. But later, days and weeks and years, he returns with small trinkets he's stolen and stories to tell about them. He keeps nothing, like always, but she'd probably like to see them, even if she never saw the one thing he didn't return.

At Aoko's funeral, he's in disguise, and no one understands why a passerby is so thoroughly grieved. He kneels outside as a stranger, facing where he knows the urn will be, and whispers desperate apologies and confessions and all the little promises he meant to keep. Hakuba, who'd kept all of his, finds him, and knows him, and invites him in. They grieve together in silence, without fighting. It's years after she gave up on making them get along, but he likes to think she appreciates the effort even after she's gone.

At Hakuba's funeral, no one extends him that courtesy, and the security guards escort him out. He pretends it's his way of honoring him, because at last, Hakuba has gotten him in trouble for _something._

At Tantei-kun's funeral... There is no one left who knows. There is no one left to tell. But someone's murdered in the lobby, and Kudo's children solve it, and Kaito thinks, _he, at least, has a legacy._

(The tears, as always, come later.)

* * *

Tears are a natural response to pain, but not for Kaito.

In the beginning, before he trained himself out of them, they still were. But he hid them and pushed them back, a perfect poker-face mask like his father, even when his father was gone. But sometimes he cried when he skinned his knees. Sometimes he cried when he burnt his fingers. And sometimes he cried when his father was gone, _still_ gone, and not coming back to see Kaito's new trick, no matter how good it was.

Before Pandora, he didn't cry. Kid didn't cry. His father hadn't cried, as Kid, and Kaito wouldn't disgrace that now. No matter how he injured himself, or how badly it hurt. He wouldn't.

And now, after Pandora, he didn't. Ever. Because it didn't hurt. He broke through a window, and didn't even feel a jolt after he pulled the shards out. He fell three stories into a tree and came out without a scratch. He dove through a fire; not even his hair was singed.

He was shot point-blank in the chest by the last member of the organization.

He lived.

Tears were never his response to pain.

But to _despair_ – yes, perhaps they were.

* * *

Kaito lives and lives and lives.

His name is Kuroba Kaito and he is a magician, until he can't make himself look old enough, then Kuroba Kaito dies. He's reborn as a security consultant, renowned by collectors and museums all across the globe. He's known for joking and laughing and keeping everyone at arm's length, because it will hurt too much to lose them. Then the security consultant dies, and the actor takes his place. This one lives longer, because he needs his youthful looks, and he can pretend to see plastic surgeons, until it comes out that he doesn't. Then he dies _fast_ , and hard, and with no possibility that he could have survived. None of them have romances, anything other than friends, because it hurts too much, and he doesn't want to cry.

And it goes on, and on, and on.

(Kaitou Kid never dies.)

* * *

He doesn't cry when the world dies, and nor when humanity begins to leave it. He sees the beginning of new worlds and the end of those ones too. He is alone, and he no longer cries, because he no longer feels. His holdings over lifetimes have come together into one enormous fortune, and he makes _worlds_ appear like once he did his doves.

He can barely remember Kuroba Kaito, but when he hears the rumor, it's familiar all the same.

 _There's a gem,_ they say _, Cursed or blessed or neither, that can make you live forever_.

 _Who'd want that,_ Kaito wonders, until he realizes that maybe, just maybe, he won't be alone anymore.

He would kill for that. He would die for that, if he could. Maybe he will.

They call it Pandora, again. It is both their hope and his.

It never cried tears of immortality.

(Kaito did.)


End file.
